Truthiness and Couples Therapy
Travis Jeffords, M.Div, M.S., LCMHCA, NCC
Back in 2005, comedian Stephen Colbert created Webster’s word of the year that year on his hit satiric news show The Colbert Report, when he invented the word Truthiness. Truthiness, by definition, is the belief or assertion that a statement is true, based on how true something feels, rather than consulting evidence, logic, facts, or intellectual examination. Stephen Colbert applied this term Truthiness to describe how US politics works, where politicians and talking heads often made strong truth claims based on feelings about what was happening, rather than based on any sort of evidence, or logic to back up those claims (and I have to say, it doesn’t seem like the last 17 years has been marked by a decline in thinking rooted in Truthiness).
In my definition of Truthiness, we find ourselves believing something we wish to be true, something we tell ourselves is true, but yet that certainly doesn’t make it true. In the political realm this may be advantageous for politicians and political parties to create beliefs that don’t align with reality because they can rally voters to their cause and maintain power.
But this isn’t a political blog.
This is a mental health blog.
In the political world, there may be the belief that, as songwriter Christian Lee Hudson writes, ‘if you tell a lie for long enough then it becomes the truth’...however, with regards to mental health, I believe that there are indeed consequences for individually and communally straying from, or repressing, various truths about ourselves.
In many ways this is one of the goals on ‘doing the work’ in therapy; with the aid of a mental health professional we are able to illuminate our deeply held mistaken beliefs about who we are, or how the world works, and come to recognize them as containing their own elements of Truthiness…these faulty beliefs seem to be rooted in reality, but upon closer examination, these beliefs about the world may need to be modified or left behind for a belief that more closely aligns with our psychological realities. Many of these mistaken beliefs can take on a sort of hard-line, absolute quality that may not reflect the complexities of the lived experience. I’m thinking of the many men who have told me they have carried around, subconsciously, the belief that they had to be strong (meaning disconnected from their inner emotions) at all costs in order to be a real man. I’m thinking of the women in my life who carry the unspoken belief that if they are not perfect parents (usually meaning always emotionally regulated), they have failed their children, and carry a deep sense of shame.
But, what I want to mention in this article in particular, comes from James Hollis’ book The Eden Project; In Search of the Magical Other. In his book Hollis makes the claim that there are two great false ideas that drive humankind. One is the idea of immortality, and the other, is the ‘Magical Other’. The ‘Magical Other’, is the idea that there’s one person out there, who, will “make our lives work, a soul-mate who will repair the ravages of our personal history; one who will be there for us, who will read our minds, know what we want and meet those deepest needs; a good parent who will protect us from suffering and, if we are lucky, spare us the perilous journey of individuation” (growing up). This ‘Magical Other’ certainly has the qualities of Truthiness…it just…kind of…feels right. Think of how many songs play on the radio about this very thing - meeting someone who you are enchanted by and who will make everything okay. Think of how many romantic comedies begin with two people with obvious flaws, then they meet each other in some cute way, and then, by the end of the movie they are in love forever after.
In Jungian thought, the longing for this perfect Magical Other who will complete us is actually a universal human longing to return to that perfect ideal time in our own development, namely, the time in utero or just after childbirth when we are perfectly connected to our Mothers. However, shortly after we are born we come to the recognition that our parents can not totally take care of our every need, and our culture helps us deal with this anxiety by telling us about a Magical Other who will restore us to our early developmental bliss and union where we are totally cared for and totally taken care of.
For many people, they carry this unconscious belief that their partner will complete them and take care of their every need. At first, during the honeymoon phase of the relationship, it seems as if the partner just may be the one who is capable of pulling it off too! But, at some point, sooner or later, we become aware that our partner is not, in fact, capable of taking care of our every need.
At this point, individuals in a couple try (and this may be happening outside their awareness) to subtly or not-so-subtly influence the other partner and bring them into alignment with their ideal image of the partner. Psychologist Karen Horny names three games individuals play. The first is submissiveness, the second is asserting control over the other individual, and finally when neither of those work, the final strategy is to distance oneself emotionally from the other partner. It is usually at this point, when both partners no longer feel safe being vulnerable or emotional with one another, that they find themselves in a therapist's office as a last ditch effort.
Both members are usually 100% convinced that it is the other partner's reason the relationship has gone South. Both members are convinced that the therapist is going to side with them, and, together, they will finally fix the other person, turning them back into that Magical Other we have, since birth or shortly after, subconsciously wished for.
Here, it is the role of a good therapist to call out the Truthiness of it all. It feels true that it is the other person's fault, it has a certain quality of Truthiness about it…however, the reality is, if the relationship is going to work, it is because each partner is going to have to do the difficult work of changing themselves.
Internal Family Systems therapy creator Richard Schwartz coined the term ‘tor-mentor’ for partners in this stage of therapy. We recognize that our partners may torment us with some certain aspect of themselves, but, we are able to hold on to the mentor part as well, recognizing that when we are bothered by our partner, it is an indicator of the deeper emotional/spiritual work that we have left to do, not just an indication of the faults of our partner. Thus, the goal of couples therapy (and the goal of the relationship), isn’t to return to our idealized past where we are completely cared for by another, but to instead do the difficult work of using the relationship as a springboard to personal growth. When both partners are doing the difficult work of ‘keeping their side of the street clean’ together, and can witness each other’s difficult but rewarding journey towards inner-healing, then the relationship takes on a whole new level of intimacy. For the first time, members are not just interacting with each other based on their inner-image and projection about who the other partner is supposed to be, they can actually relate to each other more closely towards the truth of who they actually are.
